„Smell The Roses“ is out today after three years since the release of Erja Lyytinen’s last solo studio album, „Waiting for the Daylight“. Since then, the High-Flying Finn has continued to tour the globe relentlessly, performing at prestigious events such as the Byron Bay Blues Festival in Australia, headlining HRH Blues at the O2 Academy in Leicester, and making her debut at the legendary Rory Gallagher Festival in Ballyshannon, to name but a few.
During what was already a sterling year for the artist, in November 2024 Erja Lyytinen was recognised as an Angel of Rock at the HRH Awards in Great Yarmouth following in the footsteps of legends of the genre such as Doro Pesch and Jackie Chambers from Girlschool.
Throughout her career Erja Lyytinen has appeared on many television shows in her native Finland, but in the latter stages of 2024, the artist was invited to participate in The Masked Singer on Finnish TV. Her character was „Skeleton,“ and she got to sing cool songs like „Master of Puppets,“ by Metallica, „Running up That Hill,“ by Kate Bush and „Hallelujah“ by Jeff Buckley.
Amid extensive touring activity and her stint on The Masked Singer, at the close of 2024, the Queen of the Slide Guitar released a new live album titled „20 Years of Blues Rock!“. The concert recording was captured in her hometown of Helsinki, Finland during an evening that celebrated a musical milestone – that being the 20th anniversary of the release of Erja’s debut solo album Wildflower. Behind the scenes, throughout much of 2024, Erja was in the studio working on her upcoming full-length studio album.
„2024 was very innovative for me. I started to write new songs in Spring 2024 when I had a chance between my hectic schedule,“ says Erja. „On my last studio album from 2022, „Waiting for the Daylight“ we had lots of layers on each track – violins, keyboards, tens of guitar tracks and lots of backing tracks. With the new album, I wanted to go the opposite direction. For the album „Smell the Roses“ I wanted to put the focus on the guitar riffs and guitar solos and make the band instruments stand out individually.“
„Smell the Roses“, continues to showcase Erja Lyytinen’s musical evolution as the artist proceeds to push her creative boundaries with each release that follows. „The album’s backing tracks were recorded at Hollywood House Studios in Helsinki. I told my mixing engineer Matias Kiiveri to go for the sound of seventies rock albums. I have been recently listening to mainly vinyl and recordings from the sixties and early seventies,“ explains Erja. „While mixing the album, we used some analogue gear like a Two-Track Tape Machine to get a fat and warm sound on the album. This sound and the organic way of creating music speaks to me a lot.“
With Erja Lyytinen on vocals and guitars in this album we have Harri Taittonen on hammond, Heikki Saarenkunnas, on bass and Jesse Lehto on drum.
